Is Dark SUN Sword and Sorcery?

[Imaro]

It is definitely the most Sword&Sorcery TSR setting out there. Dark Sun is somewhat different from the best known S&S settings, and that tends to mislead people. But the underlying themes - strength as the only thing to save you in a brutal world, the corruption of authority, a harsh environment, etc. - are there. I don't think all S&S "has to be" exactly like Hyboria, or Lankhmar, or Leigh Brackett's or C. L. Moore's Mars. That's genre-ification, like saying that high fantasy is only high fantasy when it is about a diverse set of human and nonhuman characters collaborating to destroy the doo-dad of some sinister Dark Lord.

See, now I totally agree with you, but I am also willing to concede that I may have been wrong. Another poster asked if Dark Sun was Swords and Sorcery and I immediately replied that it was. (Saying yes IMHO is classifying it by what it draws on most strongly, since no genre can be totally classifiable)

My reasons given to the poster are below. Also just wanted to make it clear that something can be post-apocalyptic and still be swords and sorcery(how I see Dark Sun) or High fantasy(Rifts). Post apocalyptic is actually a setting and I'm not sure if it is a genre onto itself.


DarK Sun(some things that make it more S&S than high fantasy)


a.) Survival and money are the driving goals of most characters, not epic LotR type quests.

Dark Sun definitely had this


b.) Corrupt Civilization.

Yep. What little civilization there was is ruled by decadent fake-gods, condones slavery, backstabbing, gladitorial combats, secret cults etc.



c.)Vast tracts of unexplored savage wilderness

Check. Barbarian(not to mention savage halflings way before Eberron) tribes, mutant animals, slave raiders, ex slave villages



d.) Magic is something feared and dangerous

ChecK. Sorcerer kings, Defilers, magic-created wastelands



e.) Strange and alien non-tolkien races

Half-Check(It was still D&D but even the standard races were twisted in new ways) Thri-kreen, Muls, Aarockra(think that's how you spell it), and my personal favorite, though not a PC race, the freakin Belgoi(they rock in a creepy way, those bells were just cool)

In fact I find Dark Sun as being extremely hard to categorize into anything besides S&S or Dark Fantasy.

 

[Mark Hope]

It depends how you run it, and which setting elements you emphasise. As stated above, it has many of the elements of sword and sorcery fiction, but also features other concepts thrown into the mix as well. My DS games tend to favour the S&S elements (being a big fan of that genre), but you could easily run a DS game that focussed on (for example) urban intrigue in the templarates, trade and commerce, post-apocalyptic horror and psychic weirdness. It's something of a sandbox in that regard.



Sandbox, geddit? Geddit? Oh, I slay myself sometimes, I really do. And if I don't, somebody else probably should...

 

[S'mon]

Environmentalist D&D Fantasy? It doesn't seem anything like what I'd consider S&S (eg Elric, Conan, Fafhrd/Mouser, Thieves' World, Dying Earth, Book of the New Sun).

 

[frankthedm]

It is definitely the most Sword&Sorcery TSR setting out there. Dark Sun is somewhat different from the best known S&S settings, and that tends to mislead people. But the underlying themes - strength as the only thing to save you in a brutal world, the corruption of authority, a harsh environment, etc. - are there.

QFtT

1. Yes Dark Sun is Sword and Sorcery seasoned heavy with alien landscapes from the Frazetta paintings, comparativly light on the cheesecake.

 

[Melan]

Melan,
Yeah but it does help to be a little closer to the source some times.

I strongly disagree with that. Fantasy should be about the strange and unusual, not about endlessly recycling the same tropes again and again. Thus, I see Dark Sun not as something different from sword&sorcery, but as something that expanded its frontiers. Sort of like how Moorcock did with his surreal otherworlds and planar adventuring - things considered "canonical" today, but novel when they were first created. Granted, the Dark Sun line declined fast - the novels were really crummy, and TSR eventually destroyed the whole thing with democracy introduces by slave revolts and so on, but the initial concept is a very solid S&S millieu.

The imagery also owes a lot to Frazetta, who is the king of sword&sorcery art in my eyes.

 

[Klaus]

See, now I totally agree with you, but I am also willing to concede that I may have been wrong. Another poster asked if Dark Sun was Swords and Sorcery and I immediately replied that it was. (Saying yes IMHO is classifying it by what it draws on most strongly, since no genre can be totally classifiable)

My reasons given to the poster are below. Also just wanted to make it clear that something can be post-apocalyptic and still be swords and sorcery(how I see Dark Sun) or High fantasy(Rifts). Post apocalyptic is actually a setting and I'm not sure if it is a genre onto itself.


DarK Sun(some things that make it more S&S than high fantasy)


a.) Survival and money are the driving goals of most characters, not epic LotR type quests.

Dark Sun definitely had this


b.) Corrupt Civilization.

Yep. What little civilization there was is ruled by decadent fake-gods, condones slavery, backstabbing, gladitorial combats, secret cults etc.



c.)Vast tracts of unexplored savage wilderness

Check. Barbarian(not to mention savage halflings way before Eberron) tribes, mutant animals, slave raiders, ex slave villages



d.) Magic is something feared and dangerous

ChecK. Sorcerer kings, Defilers, magic-created wastelands



e.) Strange and alien non-tolkien races

Half-Check(It was still D&D but even the standard races were twisted in new ways) Thri-kreen, Muls, Aarockra(think that's how you spell it), and my personal favorite, though not a PC race, the freakin Belgoi(they rock in a creepy way, those bells were just cool)

In fact I find Dark Sun as being extremely hard to categorize into anything besides S&S or Dark Fantasy.

I was gonna type a longish response, but settled for saying "ditto".

So, "ditto".

 

[Shadeydm]

Dark Sun is munchkin.

 

[Melan]

Dark Sun is munchkin.

So are the Elric stories.

 

[Aaron L]

Dark Sun is munchkin.

Wonderful insight. Have any other pieces of blinding wisdom to share with us?

 

[Henry]

In my opinion, you don't get much more swords and sorcery outside of Leiber and Howard!

A morally grey half-naked gladiator fending off slavering beasts with a sharpened jawbone on a stick?

Wizards who are themselves morally grey, but are almost universally hunted and feared for their destructive powers?

Bleak atmosphere where only the actions of a few brave souls win the day?

Like I said, IMO it's as sword-and-sorcery as they come; in some ways moreso than things like Middle Earth, Dragonlance, or Black Company.